MMPR: SSF+ Part 1

Power Rangers!

You are now reading part one of Clever Pants' very first feature, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Super Special Feature +. The "plus" stands for quantity.

I thought I'd kick things off with a little retrospective on the series, so without further ado, let's begin.

If you were a kid back in the early '90s, you probably spent your Saturday mornings like I did: glued to the idiot box watching shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, The Real Ghostbusters and, if you were lucky, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. But there was one show that came along in 1993 that totally blew everything else away. That show was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and it was awesome.

For the uninitiated and stupid, MMPR was about a group of high school students with attitude who became tasked by a giant floating head and his robotic love slave-- err, assistant to save the world from an evil, interstellar hobo/sorceress who woke up after 10,000 years in a space dumpster. I shit you not. This is all real.

The teens are given special powers drawn from the dinosaurs -- granted, only two out of them were actual dinos -- which allow them to morph into the Power Rangers: an elite team of super heroes with sweet, colour-coded costumes and matching robotic vehicles called Dinozords. In times of peril, these Zords could be fused together and transformed into the Megazord, which could be used to kick all kinds of ass.

Here's a brief rundown on each of the original five Rangers:

Jason Lee Scott(Austin St. John)

The Red Power Ranger and leader of the team, Jason's powers come from the Tyrannosaurus. He's an expert in martial arts and making others feel inadequate about themselves. Seriously, just look at those biceps.

Zack Taylor(Walter Emanuel Jones)

Zack is the stereotypical black character Black Ranger and second in command. He has the power of the Mastodon and fights using a combination of martial arts and hip-hop dancing, which he calls "hip-hop-kido."

There was a big controversy that you'll hear about to this day about the Black Ranger being played by an African-American. I personally didn't give a shit, but then again, I was only six at the time.

Fun Fact: In grade two, I was the Black Ranger for Halloween and always when we played Power Rangers during recess.

Billy Cranston(David Yost)

Billy is the Blue Ranger and holds the Triceratops power (the only other true dinosaur besides Tyrannosaurus). He's the tech-geek of the group and is responsible for creating the communication/teleportation watches they all wear.

A true testament to geeks everywhere, if Billy were a real person in today's world, he would probably be reading this article right now while simultaneously writing programs in machine code to track his stats in World of Warcraft and downloading 3 gigs of Japanese tentacle porn. Billy Cranston, we salute you.

Trini Kwan(Thuy Trang)

There isn't much to say about the Yellow Ranger. She's pretty boring and is commonly referred to as "the other female Ranger." Maybe it was just because I grew up in an area completely devoid of Asians, so none of us knew what to think of her. She was that strange looking foreign girl that everyone was too afraid to talk to.

She did have the Sabertooth Tiger Dinozord, which is pretty cool. You win this round, Asia. You win this round...

Kimberly Ann Hart(Amy Jo Johnson)

Last but certainly not least, we have Kimberly, the Pink Ranger; aka: The Hot One. There wasn't a straight guy in my second grade class who didn't have a crush on her. In fact, a recent Internet survey concluded that Amy Jo Johnson is the hottest person in the world. Ever. Don't ask me for sources, because I don't have any. It's common knowledge that if you disagree, you're probably a homosexual. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm not going to judge you just because you're gay.

Anyway, Kimberly had the power of the Pterodactyl and a cute little skirt. She is also my girlfriend and we make out ALL THE TIME.

So that's it for the Ranger profiles. I didn't realize how long this was getting (you can blame me writing this at 2 in the morning), so I'll cut things off here and continue the retrospective with part 2.

Stay tuned!

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Listen guys... i think it's all been said before so i will just reiterate: it's humor. i didn't need a preface to figure that out. Right when he said "for the uninitiated and stupid" i knew this wasn't a serious article. did i laugh out loud... no. did some of his phrasing warrant a smile and a chuckle... hell yeah.

Knites: great move. nothing i appreciate more than someone who recognizes they may have made a mistake and apologizes. i'm not being sarcastic here - i sincerely think that shows real character there. as for the rest of youse peoples (see thats funny): calm down a bit. read an article.. if ya like it - cool, comment on what ya like. if ya don't like it, cool - click a thumbs down, but avoid bashing. if ya don't like it and have constructive criticism, then email the poster. open forum criticism comes across as negative energy dude, and it forces the poster to go on the defensive therefore completely negating your input. a personal and private email can help the poster get better.

yeah... Eek's style of humor may not suit everyone, and it is certainly not my cup of tea, but i did recognize it as funny and it gets a big thumbs up from me.

Long? Not really that long. But I did like your photo layout, pretty cool with the circular cropping. I was all about being Zack or Zak or Zac (I've seen it spelled all of those ways on various bits of merchandise) the Black Ranger, although it must have been funny to see a chubby, buck-toothed white kid doing his version of "hip-hop kido". I even made a foil-covered cardboard Morpher with individual power coins and hung it on the back of my belt buckle. Such was the power of the MMPR at the time.

Like the guy said it was meant to be funny, not serious. Did I find it funny? No. But, whatever. There are a million Power Ranger sites out there if you want to get educated on the history. This writer obviously wasn't here to give us a history lesson.

Power rangers, one of my favorite shows growing up I remember watching and then going to school and acting like tommy the white/green/red ranger. I had alot of fun and the show actually taught me things that help me be a good person I know it sounds kind of corny and stuff but thats the way it seemed to work for me. but all i guess the last thing i have to say is may the power protect you.

Someone likes to take things personally enough that he has to resort to l33+ speak to insult someone else.

I didn't find the article to be in any way funny in a satirical way. I found it insulting towards the show and the fans of the show. Maybe I'm biased, maybe it's because I got a chance to talk to some of the actors for a little bit. What I see is someone wants nothing more than to be rude to people.

I do take comments about the humour to heart. I'm working on making part two a little wittier (if still lowbrow) in my own way, which is why I opted not to write it all in one night fuelled by energy drinks and Batman movies.

Point taken. I guess I missed the "satire" element. But, then, I do prefer my satire with a quite a bit more wit an intelligence, so it is this preference that made me interperet this piece as poorly written rather than low brow comedy. I apologize.

I really enjoyed this article; albeit short, it was a fun read. I was a huge Power Ranger fan growing up as a kid, and you hit the nail on the head with a lot of your commentary.

As for some of the comments...

Knites: get off your high horse. Leaving constructive criticism is one thing, but your post is unproductive and outright condescending. You may be an established article-writing Retro Junker, but that doesn't excuse leaving feedback like that.

Skesis: the article is tongue-in-cheek -- you can't take the stuff he's saying serious. He did it to be humorous.

You're taking this way too seriously. It's supposed be "VERY immature." It's satire. Heaven forbid you ever stumble upon The Best Page in the Universe. Your head might a'splode.

If you don't enjoy the article, that's fine. I'm just catering to my own sense of humour here, and if others happen to find amusement in the process, all the better.

I'll be posting part two (and perhaps any subsequent parts) here as well for anyone that's interested. Unless, of course, the RetroJunk community opts to bury this by clicking that unfriendly looking thumbs-down icon. It's up to YOU to decide!

^ Aren't you rude. Knites has written many articles in Retrojunk. He's very knowledgeable about many subjects. Just because you have no interest in the Yellow Ranger doesn't mean you shouldn't do your research. Also, a lot of things you say in your Article are very derogatory towards the readers. I mean look:

"For the uninitiated and stupid,"

"The teens are given special powers drawn from the dinosaurs"

Actually it's the Morphing Grid which was channeled through the Dino coins.

"He's an expert in martial arts and making others feel inadequate about themselves. Seriously, just look at those biceps."

You attack Jason/Austin here because he works out and takes care of himself. Or at least he did when he started the show. When they did the Forever Red episode for the 10th year Anniversary Jason/Austin looked like they gained weight.

"A true testament to geeks everywhere, if Billy were a real person in today's world, he would probably be reading this article right now while simultaneously writing programs in machine code to track his stats in World of Warcraft and downloading 3 gigs of Japanese tentacle porn. Billy Cranston, we salute you."

Actually if Billy was a real person right now, he'd be head of a major company and rich as shit.

"Trini Kwan(Thuy Trang)"

Knites already educated you on her.

"You win this round, Asia. You win this round..."

Do you have any idea how racist that sounds?

"It's common knowledge that if you disagree, you're probably a homosexual. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm not going to judge you just because you're gay."

That sounds very homophobic and is again attacking someone like your racist comment about Asia.

"Anyway, Kimberly had the power of the Pterodactyl and a cute little skirt. She is also my girlfriend and we make out ALL THE TIME."

First you sound sexist about her skirt comment (Which I always found annoying in the female Rangers) and then you claim she's your girlfriend and you make out all the time...

This article is VERY immature and as knites said... more like an opening paragraph. You say you didn't realize how long it was, I say you are being lazy. So don't attack Knites on calling you out when you need to re-polish your article STAT!

So that's it for the Ranger profiles. I didn't realize how long this was getting (you can blame me writing this at 2 in the morning), so I'll cut things off here and continue the retrospective with part 2.

This is an intro paragraph, not an article. More work next time please before posting. And, by the way, there is a ton to say about the Yellow Ranger if you bother to get off your butt and do your research. For example:

There have not been any Asian American Yellow Rangers since Trini, as some people considered it racist as Asian people are usually depicted as yellow-skinned.

Early in Season 2, actress Thuy Trang injured her leg while performing a stunt on the show (the cast normally performed their own stunts). In particular, in the episode "The Beetle Invasion" she is notably seen sitting on a bench wearing a knee brace while the other Rangers played the game. Hence the character was unable to participate in most fight scenes and was often absent from other scenes that did not have something to sit on, for the rest of the actress's time on the series.

When Thuy Trang, Austin St. John, and Walter Jones left the show (presumably over monetary issues), their characters stopped making new on-screen or face-to-camera shots before they were written off in the two-part "Power Transfer" episode in which their characters were chosen to attend the Teen Peace Conference. Trini was replaced by Aisha Campbell.

Finally: According to a contest held by ABC Family in 2004, Trini was voted the best Yellow Ranger of all time.